Today (October 11) is the International Day of the Girl. Some of the problems that girls face include illiteracy, school dropout, forced marriage and more. This was further highlighted by the Taliban’s actions against Malala Yousufzai, a 14 year old blogger in northwest Pakistan who advocates for education for girls.

If you are interested in books about girls and women and the issues that they face in this ever-changing world, here are some books you can look at within our library:

The US government opened a new website yesterday (alzheimers.gov) which aims to answer questions like: What are the treatment options? What does insurance pay for? Where can I go for help?

This website is part of the Obama administration’s first National Alzheimer’s Plan (.pdf) to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s by 2025. Some of the research that the National Institutes of Health is looking at includes an insulin spray therapy which is squirted into the nose, and a study targeting amyloid, the “brain plaque” that appears in Alzheimer’s cases.

The April issue of the the magazine Sky & Telescope has an interesting article regarding the sinking of the Titanic and how the moon may have played a very pivotal role. Exceptionally strong tides might have been the culprit that caused abnormally large ice bergs to break off in January 1912. The tides were caused by a lunar perigee (the moon being at the closest point to the Earth) one day after recording a full moon. This combination of factors caused the breakage of ice.

These ice bergs would then appear in the shipping lanes of the north Atlantic by April.

If you wish to read the entire article, the April issue of Sky & Telescope is available within the Periodicals room of the Sullivan Library. It is also available electronically in the Gale Databases — once you are in Gale, choose Academic OneFile. The title of the article is “Did the moon sink the Titantic” — you’ll have an easier time finding it if you leave off the question mark at the end.